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I moved with 2 Luton vans. My T4 and an estate.
I haven't moved my garage yet....
FWIW our home insurance has always covered the contents in transit between houses (buildings+contents with Nationwide).
I've only seen this cover in a couple of companies but Ross us correct that nationwide do it:
Permanent household removal and temporary storage.
Accidental loss or damage to your contents while moving from your home to your new permanent home within the British Isles. This includes while your contents are kept inside temporary storage for up to seven days in a row.
Restrictions will no doubt apply if stuff disappears from the van itself, so you'd have to load and unload sharpish, otherwise a limit of about £1k would apply. Edit. Actually I'm not sure they do! Blimey. You could drive a Luton van through the gaps in the wording.
Also, breakage of fragile items (china, glass, pottery) isn't covered unless packed by a professional.
Biggest thing is distance, how far are you moving, as this will provide info on how many runs you can do, if i move a distance, then it's always removals company, if it's within an hour, i do it myself, i've moved many times! Also, what time limit do you have, is it a chain, do you have to be out same day as someone moving in, etc, etc.
Big tips i always do is get rid of the crap prior to moving, several skip runs, sell off tat, etc.
Then it's prep work, others have said everything that needs to be said, you're getting a sack barrow, but are you getting ramps for the doors, how are you moving the fragile items, when i move the likes of the TV, pictures and so on go in the car.
Get help is the biggest bit of advice, they don't need to be strong, they just need to be at the both ends if you're doing runs, having people lining up stuff means less stress and time between runs.
As someone also said as well, make sure you factor in all the dirty stuff, you really don't want to empty the shed and stick that stuff next to the bed or whatever, again, if you can do separate runs you can plan this, if you're doing long distance then it'll be a hell of a job!
Start packing well in advance. Get as much newspaper/ bubble wrap / packaging materials as possible. Keep your eye on Gumtree / Freecycle / FB marketplace for boxes or find a friend who works somewhere that has lots of boxed deliveries (lots of supermarket boxes are rubbish - science labs are a good source) Buy twice as many rolls of brown parcel tape as you think. Buy a parcel tape gun. Have lots of old blankets in the van for packing and protecting. Big things in first then pack the boxes in the gaps. I preferred medium and small boxes as it was too tempting to overfill big boxes with heavy stuff and it's easier to find small box sized spaces in the van.
I'll be surprised if your van is big enough. I used a 7.5T van with tail lift. 1 trip is easier than multiple trips. The empty return journey may be a pain
Check your house insurance - it may not cover self moves.
Goods in transit insurance is worth it for peace of mind against losing everything you own if the van catches fire, has an accident or gets stolen or the contents get stolen.
Why not Fridays
Everyone wants to move on a friday. Everyone wants sn early finish as its friday, everyone is tired as its friday
Alot of places are short staffed on a friday. When i did removals in tje 90s boozy fri lunch was still a thing. We would sit outside houses for hours waiting for solicitors and estate agents to ring to confirm money transfer completion
Had some proper nightmare ones with stroppy teenagers im the middle of a messy divorce having to downsize to a flat and thinking by staging a sit in the move wouldnt happen
Old owners leaving, locking the door and driving 200 miles away with the keys....
Full lorry, then owners say what about the sheds...
I thought you would do the packing on the day....
Full lorry then owners decide to put some stuff into storage while they decide if they want to keep it...
Full lorry outside new place waiting for a clean team to come in and do a deep clean prior to unloading, then 3 useless kids roll up with a Henry and can of jif spray...
It all depends on how much stuff you have and what kind of move it is. How far? And/or are you exchanging in a chain at both ends (i.e. your house has to be empty and keys with estate agent to transfer money and get new keys, i.e. it has to happen in one go)? If you have to empty in one go you should consider storing excess stuff at a storage place for a few trips before the exchange date, or finding friends and family who will take bits. If there is a chain on both ends, you need to be out and house cleaned and keys handed to estate agent so that the money transfer can go ahead - don't be the arse that holds up the chain.
Agree if it were me, be as organised as possible boxing everything up well ahead, with labels or what is in it and where it goes, on the side and on top. If you haven't done much packing, do mix up heavy and light objects, or lift the box when 1/3 and 1/2 full to make sure you can both happily carry up and down stairs - if it is too heavy to do that repack it (books/crockery/pans + clothes/bedding). And yes have 1-2 boxes that are 'needed' on your first few days that go in the car - enough kitchen stuff + microwave to make food if you have any problems the other end, clothes and toiletries etc. We have always taken beds apart the night before and just camped on the bedroom floor, so that minimal camping gear goes in the car with us. And your fragile things - TV, monitors, laptops / desktop PCs, camera equipment and anything else that can't be boxed but won't handle things banging into it, all goes in the car. Then if things go wrong or we are just knackered we can make do for the first few nights in an otherwise empty house. I would have the van hired for at least 1 day after removals, so if you are knackered or one of you injures yourselves you can get assistance emptying it and carrying stuff upstairs etc. And yes a tail lift and sack truck for the white goods is helpful, especially if only 2 of you.
All our (buy/sell) moves have been over long distances (4+ hours drive each way) and we've only done it ourselves when we actually had both houses mortgaged for a while because we were both working in different places (me completing a fixed term contract while my partner moved) and wanted / needed our purchase to go through and the chain wouldn't / couldn't wait for our buyers. So in that case we probably spent 6 weekends moving stuff between houses that would fit in the estate car, and then hired a long wheel base for the final move of most furniture and other 'bits'. It's the tectrix tessellating everything that is a pain. And lots of 'stuff' that doesn't fit in boxes - bikes, canoe, gardening stuff (from lawnmower, strimmer, chain saw and PPE to spades and loppers, potted plants (actually a dwarf apple, agreed with the buyers we were taking it)), power tools and hand tools that can't be boxed. We actually don't have much furniture. It takes up a lot fo space because it doesn't tesselate or happily sit on top of other 'bits'.
You could drive a Luton van through the gaps in the wording.
I was aware of the wording of most policy's being vague as hell. Hence I'd want it in writing that leaving a van outside my house all packed up with my world possessions was covered. After all anyone that has passed your house that day knows what's in it....
Noted that you said its too late to get someone else to do it, but:
It will take longer than you think to load
And the pros will do it quicker than you could imagine possible.
When we moved a few years ago, the van drove over to the new house, while Mrs pushed the pram an babe over on foot. By the time she had arrived they had unloaded and gone.
money well spent.
My last move was just to the next street up. So close that the back garden of the new house almost backs on to that of old house. However, we still used a moving company with a massive lorry and so glad we did. As the new people were moving into ours on the same day we got the keys to the new place it all had to be done in one go so there is no way we would be able to have done it ourselves. It was funny seeing the moving lorry pack up and leave only to arrive at the destination about 2 minutes later.
I had done previous moves myself with a hired van when I had a place to store things temporarily but it's a horrible job so happy to pay someone else to do it.
Thanks folks.
I'm remaining hopelessly optimistic that it will all fit. We are now passed the point to worry too much more. We have a large family bus that we can convert to van duties and a hatchback that can be brought into service and will be disassembling as much as we can.
I'm not going to read anymore comments now - I may further scare myself but will update you on how we get on once complete 🙂
Thank you for all the tips - I need to get some packing film.
M
I’m remaining hopelessly optimistic that it will all fit.
When we moved last I filled our 3.5t horsebox, only took the contents of the (single) garage 🙂
I'm in the process of DIY moving myself. For the last 3-4 weeks I have been slowing packing things in boxes, and at the weekend started to move them into storage. So far it has been one van trip and about 5 car trips to fill most of the storage unit. On the day, i am hiring a Luton van to carry the rest of the house stuff, sofas table, bed mattress etc. I hope it all fits in one go 😀 but as it currently stands it looks to cost about £250 to do, instead of the £1000 the movers were asking for. As the house isn't far it seems like a viable option, though i have roped my brothers and dad into helping too.
Seeing a family move earlier and watching the removals men makes me think we have done the right thing!
No idea how much stuff you have but when we moved at the end of last year, we filled our T5 7 or 8 times with stuff beforehand to shove into parent's garages etc (stuff we didn't need immediately after moving) and then on the day we had an 18t wagon and a smaller XLWB box van as well as the car and our own van full. That little lot took us weeks to pack up.
Last 2 times we've moved we've used a removals company, previous 2 times we DIY'd but that was when we were much younger, minus kids and moving to/from smaller houses. Absolutely not a chance in hell I'd ever DIY again.
If you have any use for them after the move I can recommend buying heavy duty stack able storage boxes, clear tubs mean you can see whats in them. Much more robust than cardboard boxes (we still used cardboard boxes as well)
We bought a load of them, now used in the garage and loft, also a couple as kit boxes
So, trying to get some prices for our house move - which will actually only be the big items we can't get into our 2 estate cars over the 3 weeks we'll have the keys for, one luton van loads worth, going 2 miles.
A few years back I did 2 moves via anyvan, got some good quotes back - cost me £223 for a 3 bed to 3 bed full house move a couple of miles, and £205 for a 1 van load from Bristol to Kent.
Now, it seems they only do an 'instant quote' which has come out to £466. No option from what I can see (and I've really dug around!) to actually get quotes from people, like you used to? What a waste of time. Now going to have to email around trying to get prices.
Shiply for 2 miles ?
Admittedly it's been a while since I used it but basically you post a want ad and folk respond. Not sure I'd let my possessions out my sight mind
Admittedly it’s been a while since I used it but basically you post a want ad and folk respond. Not sure I’d let my possessions out my sight mind
That's exactly how anyvan used to work, but not now it seems.
Edit: worked out how to do it the old way! Go to your profile page and under jobs, go to 'create a job' and that then lets you list one to have people quote on.
Got a 'Quick book' price back for £239. Seems they pick a random number for the anyvan quotes, given the exact same amount of stuff...